


Orientation

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A walk on a fine April day and daffodils.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orientation

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of an old fic from my tumblr. FrUK-y if you squint.

April brings daffodils, yellow trumpets in a blue-and-white-striped vase on Marianne’s windowsill. Arthur could _swear_ the vase had been a reddish-purple (and empty) the last time he’d visited this house – but then, Marianne has always been a great deal more likely to shift (or have someone _else_ shift) her furniture around (for her) than Arthur has. She does it out of what Arthur calls whimsy and _she_ calls _keeping up with the fashions, mon chéri;_ really, _you should try it sometime,_ and has somehow, despite _all_ the vastly irritating centuries of doing so, _yet_ to be quite as annoying as that one time Alfred, possessed by the Crazy that is so very _particular_ to his oh-so-special and independent citizens, had decided _feng shui_ was a _thing that must be done,_ orientating the material items of humanity in the greater universe, and had artistically arranged his vast legion of video games in places around his house that had been likely to fall and smack Arthur on the head every time he had so much as _glanced_ at them.

Marianne’s arrangements, on the whole, tend to be kinder – even if Arthur’s leg does occasionally gain a spotted length of bruises after walking into every heavy edged object below hip-height in Marianne’s hallway when he is somewhat under the influence. He cannot, Marianne insists, complain about it the next day (though he frequently does, staunchly maintaining that Marianne’s objects _move_ just to spite him when they sense Arthur’s vaguely-inebriated presence approaching them), and –

Daffodils, Marianne’s hair gleaming like a new pound coin when she presents Arthur, where he is sunk into her sofa on ‘an amicable visit,’ with a cup of tea, strands slipping over her shoulder to catch the sun and look like living seams of gold in the air. She is…very _bright_ this afternoon, it feels like, breathing in the spring that’s finally crept up on them this year, very –

France in the springtime, acres of farms and fields of green. It could almost be England outside of the window, all green and blue, yellow flowers poking up across the fields, both yesterday and years ago, but (Arthur closes his eyes, feels the depth of the land and the start of spring and breathes in the steam from the black tea in his hands, piping hot) it’s not.

“We should go for a walk,” Arthur quietly suggests, domestic peace sunk strangely into his bones. He watches Marianne pause in taking a sip of her own drink, manicured nails around a mug covered in pictures of cartoon fish. Seychelles’ work, no doubt.

“A walk,” Marianne says, in exactly the sort of voice that means she’s far from being enamoured with the idea (very _urban country_ today, it seems). Perhaps a little deservedly – _walk,_ presented just _so_ in certain British accents, can mean anything from ‘a brief wander past the pretty flower-beds’ to ‘reluctantly hiking through the Scottish highlands in mud and rain because _some_ bastard had said they wanted a _wee ramble_.’

Marianne does not like _walks_ (not in the countryside, at least, whoever’s countryside it is), or what they do to both her hair and expensive footwear.

“A walk,” Arthur says again. Gestures vaguely at the window with one hand, the daffodils lit by sunshine, and cradles his tea more closely to his chest. “The weather’s fine.”

Marianne wrinkles her very elegant nose. “The _weather_ is barely this side of tolerable.”

“It’s not raining.”

“Hence the ‘barely’ – _chou,_ ” Marianne says persuasively, actually puts her cup down so she can talk with her hands, make a point, “there are a _great_ many other things we could do together on a day like this. _Inside_ things, because I _know_ a long lifetime on that dreary little island of yours has lowered your requirements for what you may classify as ‘a nice day,’ but the _rest_ of us, raised in better climes, still have standards.”

Arthur just looks at her. Smiles, the quirk of something sly. “I could go and talk to your neighbours by myself.”

Marianne agrees that a walk is a _wonderful_ idea once they’ve finished their drinks – as long as it’s a short one. A very, very short one. In the opposite direction to anyone she lives near. Once she’s changed her shoes and put a hat on ‘to go with her coat,’ pulled pointedly low on her head.

Amused, with just an open jacket pulled on on top of his regular clothes despite all the swatting Marianne tries to give him to cover up more, Arthur leans against the wall in Marianne’s hallway, shifts slightly out of the way to avoid the whip of her coat as she puts it on and puts his hands in his pockets. Putting many centuries of practice to good use, he’s perfectly unhelpful: “…You’re still easily recognisable, you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marianne sniffs, and finishes off her look of _subtlety_ by balancing a set of dark sunglasses on her nose and stalking out of her front door. “Allons-y. _Now._ ”

They walk – or more, Marianne strides and Arthur ambles behind her, waiting until she turns on her heel to tell him to keep up with her because like she is _ever_ going to trust an _Englishman_ to navigate his way alone around her beautiful country without somehow ruining absolutely _everything –_

Arthur gives her daffodils, one, two, three, for a sole daffodil is _misfortune_ and a group is _hope, regard_ and _joy,_ little suns that make Marianne smile despite herself, sliding off her shades and pulling off her hat when the sun grows warmer overhead. They sit on a nearby fence and swing their feet like they’re mortal children, watching a few horses in the nearby fields catch the breeze in their manes, Marianne trying not to squash her flowers. It’s a beautiful day, worth coming outside for.

“Why a walk?” Marianne asks, breaking the companionable silence, the closest she’ll come to admitting that Arthur’s idea isn’t _all_ bad.

Arthur tilts her head back to look at her, Marianne perched up higher on the fence than him, meets her curious eyes looking back down at him. “Feng shui,” he says, quite sincerely, and grins and looks away as she sighs _insufferable man._


End file.
